Life, Spirit, and Health: the View from the Mountain

This story starts with a dog, and ends with another. It’s long, and touches on sensitive subjects, with raw, open, honesty. The last 10 months have been quite a journey, full of sorrow, shock, a moment of extreme clarity, a lot of contemplation, reflection, unexpected dreams, and then resolution, when the dream became reality.

It started with watching the slow decline of our elderly dog, Kasha, who had a number of health issues. The most difficult was degenerative disc disease, and as last summer turned to fall, she was having increasing difficulties controlling her rear legs.

Then came a shocking phone call, when I found out my spinal x-rays didn’t show the herniated disc I expected, but instead showed that I, too, have, “severe multilevel degenerative disc disease,” on top of everything else.

I was caught way off guard. I had been working on the premise that I am going to get the ME/CFS under control, using all my supplements, and that one day, once I figure out these migraines or get thru perimenopause, I was going to be back to some semblance of myself – I know there’s damage that will always be there, but I think there’s a lot that can be fixed, too, slowly, over time.

But, it’s basically going to be with me the rest of my life. There are a few things I can do, some supplements and maybe some physical therapy, and I’ve gotten a TENS unit that helps. But my spine is very unstable – I’ve been going through periods for two years, where I “throw my back out,” and I can feel the discs moving out of place, and pain and sciatica flares like a bonfire.

After absorbing this news, I walked out into the living room to find that Kasha had lost control of her bowels, and there was a trail of poop leading through the living room and onto the porch. She was lying there looking so very ashamed.

It triggered a moment of extreme clarity, a frozen moment in time, where I knew two things for certain:

Kasha was at her “red line,” the place where dogs with degenerative disc disease are no longer recoverable – it was not going to go away with rest and time, and was going to be the end of her, and soon.

And just as clearly, I felt that I, too, now have a red line, though I’m not to it yet. My mind played it out for me… me with a walker, or in a wheelchair, although I don’t know how I could even use either because of a torn up shoulder, and the weakness and utter exhaustion of ME, CFS, fibromyalgia, etc.

There was the feeling of a door slamming shut in my mind, those images simply shut out. I won’t, I simply can’t, live in a condition where I’m bed bound and need a wheelchair just to get around. And I won’t be that kind of burden on Rhiannon and Ben, either.

I wasn’t afraid.
I wasn’t sad.
I felt acceptance.
And, much to my dismay, I felt relieved.
Relieved, because the long fight would be over. I didn’t realise how very tired of the constant struggle I was.

I didn’t so much as make a decision as have one thrust on me from deep in my soul. Just as Kasha would find her peaceful end, in a beautiful, sacred, manner, when the pain became too much and when she couldn’t rise, I too, would find that place.

I have many friends, fellow patients, who have to use wheelchairs or walkers or scooters, and I have the utmost respect for them.

But that’s simply not something I can accept.
I have been sick for more than 17 years, and almost entirely housebound for 10 years.
I cannot accept any further limitations on my ability to move around.

I am meant to roam mountains and walk through my beloved woods.
I am meant to be a wild thing, and I can barely take the captivity I have already been in for much longer.
I am the wolf, tightly caged, pacing back and forth, going slowly crazy from my longing to be free.

But here was this realization that I wasn’t ever going to go running barefoot again, through the golden autumn woods calling to my Heart that day, because my spine is simply too unstable. That’s a huge and terrible loss, and the shattering of all the dreams and plans I’ve been holding on to… I wanted to get well enough to be able to help some of my dearest friends, my soul sisters with ME, CFS, fibromyalgia, etc, maybe share a house with them, all of us working to heal each other.

I watched each day as Kasha had a few ups and lots of downs, and it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion, knowing it was heading my way…

And then along came some dreams, and some info about dogs, that had me reevaluating how long I am willing to fight to go on.

Twenty years ago, living in fear from a relationship gone terribly bad, I lay awake in bed at night, too stressed and worried to sleep. I found solace in meditation and visualization (shamanic journeying). Usually, I would “go” to a beautiful forest at night, and run as a wolf until I finally curled up, safe, in my den. I’d fade off to sleep that way.

But one night, instead of being in my forest, I found myself high on a rocky outcropping, in a sea of rippling sand. I could see in every direction around me, see that I was safe. I laid down in the sand, pulled my cloak around me, and felt desert winds deposit a soft blanket of sand on me. For years, every night, I went to the desert to sleep.

I studied the desert as it is today, and as it was. I drove my family crazy with my sudden obsession with the desert. I didn’t explain that the desert had come to me, unexpectedly, but it was saving my sanity.

The decades passed, and I eventually went back to my forest – until my moment of clarity. Ever since then, every night, I retreat to incredible vistas of desert dunes, open caves and hidden chambers. This time, though, there is something else there with me: a lean desert dog, colored the same as the sand, and with electric eyes that look right through me. I know the feel of her soft ears, and my fingers remember the shape of her head under my hand.

Salukis, a beautiful desert Sighthound, have fascinated me since the desert came to me. They are perhaps the oldest of all dog breeds, and the only type of dog who was not seen as “unclean.” Desert nomads have cherished the Saluki for thousands of years. I’ve wanted to have a Saluki or Saluki mix for 20 years.

But now, through chance, I learned that most people in the middle east treat dogs in horrible, horrifying, ways. They do not value them as we do. Many Salukis and other dogs are simply dumped in the desert when the owner tires of them, or if a racing Saluki doesn’t run fast enough. Some racing Salukis have their ears cropped off “to make them run faster.” The Salukis have bred with the many other dumped dogs, and now “desert dogs” are pretty much a breed of their own – small Sighthounds, usually with short fur and tails that spiral into a curl.

The pictures are terrible to see. Dogs so emaciated you can’t believe they are alive, or who’ve been viciously beaten, or thrown out of a moving car, leaving them with broken legs. Dogs who have been shot by the police, in front of children, when an area has too many strays. Dogs beaten with stones by children, who know no better. Need I go on?

It broke my heart.

The question changed from “when” to give up the fight, to a very simple, “do I want to die without first rescuing a desert dog? Or do I want to hold on long enough to rescue my dream dog, a true desert dog, and experience her life with me?”

Adopting a dog from the middle east can be somewhat complicated, but there are many groups and individuals there, mostly westerners, who are involved in rescuing the ones they can, fostering them a time, then finding them new homes in the U.S. and Europe. Some send the dogs to the U.S. first, and then put them up for adoption, and others work directly with those wishing to adopt.

I began watching the various groups on Facebook in late winter, and the number of dogs needing new homes is overwhelming. But if I was to rescue one, it had to be the one from my dreams…

And then, there she was. A desert dog with electric, topaz blue eyes, just as I’d been dreaming of. I really didn’t think she could exist. But she does.

Ellie is about one year old, and was found dumped to starve or fend for herself. Despite that, I hear she’s an incredibly loving and gentle dog. She’s not too big, and not too small, either, weighing in at 40 pounds.

After weeks of working on arrangements, my Ellie will be flying from Dubai, in the UAE, home to me on Monday, June 27. What a birthday present!

For me, Ellie is Hope – hope that I will have improvements in my health, and she is incentive to keep on fighting, keep on going, no matter how hard it sometimes is. By fulfilling my dream of having a desert dog, my motivation and inspiration to keep moving forward to experience her whole life with her is immensely boosted. That’s just how much I love dogs.

I’ve also become close friends with Ellie’s amazing rescuer, Charlotte, and with Marci, who is practically a one woman whirlwind of dog rescuing in Al Ain, UAE. I am completely in awe of what they are doing, and will be forever grateful for all the hours of work, time and money, that went into getting Ellie cleared to fly and come home to me.

I’ve set up a fledgling Facebook page for them, in the hope of helping other dogs find homes. It gives me inspiration, to know that I can still do something with my life, even if all that it takes is monitoring a Facebook page. I’m not completely useless, after all.

I believe everything happens for a reason. It was not coincidence that I learned about the desperate conditions for dogs in the middle east, and it was not coincidence that Ellie showed up in need of a home, the dog from my dreams, one I didn’t think could possibly exist.

Ellie of the Topaz Eyes is the fulfillment of a 20 year long dream. If she can happen, what else might be waiting around the corner? All I know is that I have Hope again.

Is there any such thing as a good death? A beautiful, peaceful, passing?

Is there a right way and a wrong way for the owners, scratch that, the human family of a beloved companion animal to act, when they have to free a well loved furry family member from life, because of illness or injury? When the vet is there, administering the fatal meds, is there a proper or expected or normal way to act? Or do they see a whole range of responses?

Strange questions to ask, I know, but you ought to be used to strange questions from me by now.

Our vet cried, along with Rhiannon and I, when we put dear Kasha to sleep, on Nov 2. I’m pretty sure it was my actions that caused that.

In her prime...

Let me back up, and set the scene… Kasha was 12 or 13 years old, quite old for a giant of a dog, weighing over 100#. She was a shelter dog, rescued from the ASPCA when less than a year old. She had been a member of the family a long, long, time.

Kasha had developed multiple issues, including deafness, a heart condition, gallbladder problems, and then, canine degenerative disc disease began taking a huge toll on her, worsening dramatically in August. She had muscle spasms in her rear thighs and legs, and stiffness, then finally started having a hard time getting her rear legs up, standing or walking. She just couldn’t coordinate her back legs properly.

I watched her those last two weeks with her spinal issues weighing heavily on my mind. I had just been told that my own back pain wasn’t just scoliosis or a slipped disc.

No, nothing is ever that simple with me. Instead, I have “severe multilevel degenerative disc disease” of pretty much my whole spine. And Kasha had the canine equivalent.

So the question on my mind that last few weeks was, “is she in as much pain as I am?” Because I was in a lot of pain, with sharp pains in my spine, feeling discs moving around, sciatica in my hips making it hard to get comfortable, no matter what position I tried.

Did she feel that way? I don’t think so, at least not until the last few days, and I dosed her with pain meds then, while we waited for it to be Monday, and the vet able to come…

Books on grieving pet loss all say when you have to be the one to make the call, that so-dreaded and very final decision, that everyone feels guilty to some extent.

I didn’t. It couldn’t have been any clearer, watching this beautiful, still so-very-loving, old friend, drag herself around with her front legs, unable to stand her rear up without assistance. How affectionate she was those last few weeks, relishing all the extra attention she was getting…

A young Kasha, right after her adoption...

We were lucky, and a local vet has just started doing house calls. She had known we were almost there, and was waiting to get the call… and then it was clearly, so clearly, time.

The vet was running late that day, but it turned out to be for the best, I think. We had moved Kasha out into the yard, and as the sun fell and the light began to die, we brought candles, many candles, outside.

For an hour or so, Rhiannon and I sat beside Kasha, lavishing her with Love, expensive treats, and cheese. We told her how much she meant to us, swapped stories about what a good dog she’d been, shared the funny stories, and commemorated her life.

We were ready, when the vet arrived. She quietly asked questions, to understand the situation better. We managed to stop crying long enough to answer them. I suspect our tear-streaked faces told her more than enough.

The vet was gentle and patient, and Kasha was soon sedated, nearly asleep, her head in my lap… the vet waited until we were ready, to give that final injection.

My forehead rested on Kasha’s, one hand cradling her head, the other in Rhiannon’s tight grip, as tears streamed like a river over Kasha’s head. I whispered to her that it was okay, that she should fly free, my beautiful girl, away from the pain, and that we’d be okay.

Kasha’s nose against my leg told me when her breathing slowed, and stopped.

I don’t know how it is for other people in the same situation.

But as deaths go, this one was peaceful, reverential, sacred. An act of mercy, a setting free, done with so very much Love. I can only hope my own passing, when it comes, is such a gentle one.

And maybe that’s why the vet cried. I don’t suppose it’s every day she sees a sacred passing, a silently sobbing owner, forehead to forehead, eye to eye, with her beloved companion, as their soul takes flight.

You’re in the arms of the angels, now, Kasha.
We Love you.
Now, forever, and always.

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Awake, yet again, in the deep of the night,
I listen to the breeze sigh through the forest leaves,
Sounding like the gentle caress of waves on the shore.
My ever present companion, Kodi,
Lays watchful at the end of the deck,
As I turn to go sit in my porch swing.

A loud snort breaks the silence of the Mountain,
Echoing all around us,
And Kodi is instantly alert and by my side.
A gentle woof escapes his throat.
“We don’t bark at the deer,” I remind him,
But they snort so seldom,
He has forgotten the sound.

We move as one,
My hand resting on his broad back,
To the screened porch,
And I hear the hesitant footfalls of our visitor.
In silence, I illuminate the big doe with my flashlight,
And Kodi and I watch her, together.

She is uncommonly pale,
The color of the deer we call Brazen,
But too skittish to be her.
Perhaps her daughter or sister, I muse.
I see the lines of the old Matriarch,
The biggest doe I’d ever seen,
In this one – the sheer size, large ears.
As she moves off, slowly,
I see she is limping slightly,
As she was a few days ago,
When last I saw her.

Is that why she is alone?
I ask Kodi, who looks at me quizzically,
And sits, faithfully, beside me,
In the dark, quiet, night.
I am never alone.

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My spirit sister, Laurie, passed away, the day before yesterday, and I found this beautiful fantasy story, with characters based on myself and my youngest daughter, on her blog last night. An amazing last gift, one of many, from one who gave so much Love to the world, and to me.
Fly high, my sister, and enjoy the beautiful spring flowers!

Hello? Rhia a tall young woman with beautiful red hair, trailing down her back, was taking a walk past fields of grass through the lush green forest when she stopped short in front of the most beautiful image she had ever seen. She gasped, just staring at this magical wagon, with different colors, different textures. She said “Hello? again.” It was odd, she was sure she could hear whispers and giggling but she didn’t see anyone around. She felt incredibly safe so she climbed up the steps and peered into the wagon.

Rhia was a quiet but very strong young woman, having lived on the streets and shelters before, but as soon as she got to the top step she suddenly she felt a rush of happiness and love enveloping her. She never felt this feeling before. She walked around the carriage noticing the brilliant colors and daring to touch…

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Pull up a chair, my tribe, and I’ll tell you a story, of the Before Times, which I rarely speak of – of my life before illness, which was an unusual one by anyone’s standards. It is a bitterly cold night here on the Mountain, 8 degrees and snowy, and gazing at that snow, so incredibly fine due to the very cold air, I see it sparkle in the deck lights, and am reminded of another snowy night, so long ago, almost half a lifetime now…

I remember…
…being a single mom living with my 7 year-old daughter in a very poorly-built log cabin, with no running water, in Ohio. I hadn’t planned to be there on my own… a marriage had recently ended badly, leaving me broken-hearted and financially-ruined. I found myself enrolled in college, learning to be a naturalist or forest ranger by day, and returning home in the evenings to a great deal of responsibility… “living rough” had seemed a fine idea when I was married to someone who people compared to the “Marlboro man,” but it was a daunting prospect for a woman alone…

After a long day of college classes that involved much hiking, near sunset on a bitterly cold Winter evening, I wearily climb the steep hill to the cabin, my daughter at my side. It is cold inside, too – the cabin is heated only by a woodstove, and, being incredibly drafty, requires a constant, roaring, fire, but the fire has been banked all day, down to a slow burn. I pile on wood and get it warming up, then move outside to chores as the daylight fades.

I break the ice in my rain barrels, and tend to my two horses, and feed far too many wolves. With what little energy I have left, I scrape together dinner for my daughter, and try to be there for her. I don’t do a very good job. My situation is overwhelming, is desperate, and I don’t know how I will get through it. I am deeply depressed, but trying not to show it.

But after she is tucked in bed, I pull my boots, coat and warmest gloves back on, and go back out into the biting cold to split wood. I have just used up all the already split wood to warm the house for the evening. Cutting and splitting the wood by myself is a never-ending chore, and I cannot get caught up.

The Moon is full and bright overhead, reflecting off the snow, and I can see my way clearly. I have no outside lights, so I glance up, thankful of the Moon’s brilliance. The snow crunches and squeeks under my boots, as it only does when it is so cold. I struggle to put a snow-covered log up on my chopping block. The splitting maul is lifted and brought down on the log with a well-practiced, if exhausted, stroke, and that moment is when the Magick happens, when everything changes…

The snow and ice on the top of the log suddenly explodes up around me in a powder-fine cloud, and every single flake, every single speck, sparkles in the moonlight with glittering rainbows, as it flies up around me and ever, ever, so slowly falls.

It is as if I have been showered with finely ground diamonds, or fairy dust, each speck shimmering with all the shades of the rainbow – deep blue, purple, scarlet red, fire orange – and the bright white of the Moon as they fall.

It is perhaps the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and all because we were out of wood on a cold winter night.

I stand there in astonishment, as the cloud of glimmering diamond snowdust settles on and around me, and then gaze up at the bright Moon above me.

If I had needed a sign that even in one’s darkest hour there is Beauty, there is Hope, then I had surely been gifted with one, and I had, indeed, needed just such a sign.

It seems it is a fine and beautiful night for chopping wood after all, and I split enough for several days, laughing like a child as the rainbow-sparkling snowdust falls all around me and the glorious Moon shines down from above.

The memory of the unexpected and breathtaking Beauty of that night is a treasured one, and one I think of often. It holds and sustains me through the dark hours, and helps me find the Beauty, Inspiration, and Hope, to keep going… just as it did then.

The Moon is Magick and Mystery,
yes, and so are many other things.
If we but look,
there are signs and guideposts
all around us, pointing the way…We have only to open our Hearts and truly See.

She continues sorting through, finally finds it, where I helpfully point out it’s listed as just “Chronic Fatigue,” but reassure her it has the right questions. The screen is huge, and I’ve done this so very many times…

She begins reading through the questionnaire the computer provides:

Her: And when did this start?

Me: 1999(by now I know she’s NOT in the right place, she’s doing a new patient questionnaire, not a follow-up…)(sigh)

Me:(hard stare)Me:(thinking: do I really want or need to get into this with this ignorant nurse who couldn’t care less? I have a blazing migraine and ear infection and just want to see my most excellent doctor. I am not in the mood to patiently educate yet another nurse today.) Me: Possibly a lot of things, but even scientists don’t know for sure what causes it.

Her:(she looks up briefly, startled)Her: Oh… Is it relapsing, constant, or getting worse?

Her voice has gotten softer and lower as she’s moved down the list, and she trails off before she gets to the end. She wound up not asking me all the questions, and I should know, having done this once a month for years.

Me: I can make it easy for you. I have every single one of the dozens of symptoms on the list, with exception of diarrhea.

She looks at me with surprise.

Me: Next section: Yes, medications help, to some extent, but not enough.Me: Yes, they cause lots of side effects, such as nausea, heartburn, headaches, etc. I take meds to deal with the side effects of my meds, but no, it’s not nearly enough. I’ve been housebound since 2007.

Me: Next section: yes, I’ve tried supplements and they do help, as does meditation, massage, and physical therapy. Acupuncture was questionable.

She is busy clicking boxes.

I really couldn’t tell, when she left, if she was upset at the thought of an illness that she’d never heard of causing such issues for such a long time, if she was overwhelmed, or just didn’t care. She didn’t look up when she stammered, “I hope you get to feeling better soon.” But as I reflect back on it, her shoulders were hunched, and she kinda looked like a dog who has been beaten… or maybe like someone about to cry. I honestly don’t know. I wasn’t mean or snippy, I was just matter-of-fact.

This is what it is.

I rested my blazing head down on the edge of the table, closed my eyes against the too-bright lights, and practiced my deep breathing while I waited for my doctor to come in. I couldn’t wait to get back home, away from the lights, the ordinary sounds of life, that brought such searing pain to my oversensitive brain, back into my girl cave and the dark and quiet… one breath, one moment, at a time… but how I longed to set foot in a store, or just ride in the car without sunglasses and a scarf over my eyes…

But, This is what it is.

And what it is, is known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in the U.S., although in other countries – and by the WHO – what I have is ME: Myalgic Encephalomylitis.

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There is a Wisdom,
Buried deep in my bones,
A Gift,
Passed down to me,
From Ancestors of Old.

Today we call it a curse,
And fight and rail,
We give it names,
Arthritis and Migraine,
And call the wild Wisdom,
By another name: Pain.

But, is it, really,
Just the song my bones knows?

5,000 years ago…

…I would have been honored amongst my Tribe. I would have warned my People four hours ago that a change in the weather was coming, something I knew because I felt the change coming in my ears, my head. We would have had time to take shelter before the raging winds arrived, as they have now.

…I would be warning my Tribe now that an even bigger change was coming. I feel it, in my bones – in the bad knee and shoulder that suddenly twinge, and the deep ache in my bones growing sharper by the moment.

My bones know. They are singing to me, singing of the changes to come.

Tomorrow, the temperature here will drop from 35 degrees to something-below-zero, with wind chills of -30 degrees.

My bones are telling me that, a Gift that could have meant the life or death of my Tribe.

I can tell you when rain is within 50 miles and headed this way, whatever the season, by the pang in my shoulder. There was a time when that would have been very useful.

Now, I have no need of this life-saving Gift. Who does? We have the Weather Channel, and weather apps on our fones.

But maybe, it’s time I stopped complaining about the “pain” of my “reactive inflammatory arthritis” and “weather migraines,” and started thanking my body for giving me the warnings it was meant to give me.

It is only my body singing to me with ancient Wisdom.

Maybe, it’s time I started just listening, just being with the sensations, without labeling them as “pain,” and instead, think about what they would have meant a thousand, or five thousand, years ago.

Survival. Life. Or, death.

Maybe, it’s time I stopped running away, and just lay still, curled up, and listened to the Wisdom buried deep in my body.

I think it has a lot to say.

I wrote that last night, but then didn’t post it.
I was too busy, listening to my bones sing.

There is a craft to this, the listening, one I’m sure our ancient ancestors refined. Just as I know the approach of rain by my very reliable shoulder, what exactly was the singing in my ribs, my bad knee, then most of my bones, even into my hands, telling me last night? If I had no weather app on my fone, I would need to know.

Waking far too early this morning, writhing from the ache in my bones, with pressure in my head, I knew the temperature was soon to start its drop and more change was coming. I could hear the wind roaring outside. When I got up, I discovered that yesterday’s mild south winds, that had changed to west winds last night, were now hard and gusting even harder from the north.

My mind flashed back to reading about the “polar vortex” and coming “arctic plunge,” with temperatures so low that “if you are younger than 40 you likely won’t remember anything this cold.” I put that out of mind.

Why stay awake and thrash and fight the “pain,” when it is only my bones singing to me, with the ancient Wisdom, as the bodies of some have done for countless generations before me?

Instead, I thanked my wonderous body for the warning, and told it that I understood why my bones were singing, the Wisdom it was sharing with me.

Muscles relaxed instead of spasmed.
The song became a lullabye.
And then, I went peacefully back to sleep.

It will take time to break long-engrained habits – the tightening of muscles around the signals my body is sending, the labeling of those signals always as “pain,” fighting and avoiding them, causing my body to only send them out louder and stronger, more urgently. But, it’s a start.

I’ve wondered before if weather-related migraines were an evolutionary advantage – if a small proportion of members of a tribe had them, they would have been, I think.

But, I never tried to consciously work with my body, to acknowledge that its messages were received, other than to say, “yeah, that part hurts, I understand, you can shut up about it now.” The flare of inflammatory arthritis I’ve been having has given me a new incentive to work on how I deal with “pain,” and acknowledging it while in deep relaxation does help – to a point.

Maybe, only “to a point” because I wasn’t acknowledging the whole message.

Yes, my wise body, I hear the song in my bones now, and I understand. You’re right, a big change in the weather is coming, a dangerous one. Thank you for warning me. I am safe, warm, and protected – and listening.

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Hello!

I'm Ash, and this is Wolfdreams. I mostly seem to be writing about living with ME/CFS, FMS, Lyme, and other chronic illnesses, lately, but I far prefer to ramble on (and on) about Life, dogs, nature, and spirituality. I'll try to get back to more of that!

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Send me an email to ashwolfdreamer (at) gmail (dot) com.

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Disclaimer:

I am not a doctor, nor do I have any medical training. Nothing in this blog should be construed as medical advice. I am a long-time patient sharing my personal experiences and opinions with ME/CFS/FMS/Lyme. Always make your medical decisions in consultation with your own physician (and I hope you found a good one).